Power Figure, Bocio

Power Figure, Bocio

Sculpture

late 19th-early 20th Century

Benin, Africa

Fon

Wood, iron, brass, cloth, sacrificial material

9 x 2 1/2 x 2 1/4 in. (22.9 x 6.4 x 5.7 cm)

1994.004.469

Bocio, meaning "empowered cadaver," are power objects (bo) that represent deceased human beings (cio) though the figure may appear to be alive. A bocio is not a spirit, but a kind of decoy meant to trick death by substituting for a real person. Formerly, the Fon people of Dahomey (now Benin) placed bocio figures in tombs along with the deceased so that the dead person could not then claim another person's life. Essentially bocios are commissioned as a safeguard against misfortune, witchcraft, and death.

This highly unusual bocio consists of two kneeling female figures, the lower one carved from wood, holding her breasts in an attitude of supplication, and the upper one cast in brass and proffering a large calabash-like bowl. They are bound together (both physically and psychologically) by a cloth strap wrapped over the legs of the top figure and under the chin of the lower one. The process of binding objects together is an important component of empowering the bocio figure. To further "energize" it, offerings -- which may include corn meal, blood, saliva, and urine -- are poured over it. Not only does the addition of these materials make the object more powerful, but this augmentation continually transforms the bocio's appearance as a work of art. The lower figure's face is obscured by sacrificial matter, and her mouth is sealed by a long iron chain, thereby blocking the ability to speak. Considered to be a potentially serious weapon, the act of speech is silenced, controlled by another. Iron attachments are often associated with Gu, the deity of iron and war, and are meant to drive away evil associated with physical force.

There are several types of bocio figures, including those associated with divination (Fa), and other types with royalty, with sorcery and anti-sorcery, and with the gods (vodun). All but the royal bocio retained their importance in the lives of Fon and Ewe people from Dahomey and present-day Togo whose dispersion due to the slave trade created a creolized version of bo in Haiti and later among Haitian ex-slaves in the United States. There cloth dolls performed protective and "attack" functions similar to carved bocio figures, and like them, were closely associated with the dead and with cemeteries. In Haiti it was the manbo (mother of bo) priestess and the bokor (knowledgeable in bo) priest who along with the hungan priest were responsible for their manufacture and for activating them ritually.

Ex coll. William S. Arnett

Divine Intervention: African Art and Religion, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - December 4, 2011

Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 108.

© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Bruce M. White, 2008.

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